


i bet you thought your life would change (but you're sat on a train again)

by falloutmars



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: "you're sitting next to me on a busy train and reading one of my fav books" au, Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Meet-Cute, meeting on a train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25168159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutmars/pseuds/falloutmars
Summary: The train ride from New York City to Albany becomes somewhat of a familiar one for Betty. It takes anywhere between two and a half to three hours – hours of her life she will never get back.–or, Betty meets Jughead on the train. Maybe she doesn't want those hours back after all.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	i bet you thought your life would change (but you're sat on a train again)

**Author's Note:**

> title from i always wanna die (sometimes) by the 1975.
> 
> enjoy!

The train ride from New York City to Albany becomes somewhat of a familiar one for Betty. It takes anywhere between two and a half to three hours – hours of her life she will never get back. 

Attending NYU yet still having over-protective (or, well, overbearing) parents in Riverdale means she has to take the journey a lot. With no train going directly to her hometown, she has to stop off in the nearest city, which just happens to be Albany, to either be picked up by her mildly uninterested father or drag herself to the bus station and get the super slow, super annoying bus back home.

She’s not sure which is worse.

Today, her father is picking her up. No doubt he’ll be there at least half an hour earlier which in turn makes Betty feel back that she’s late even though she isn’t late and no matter how many times she tells him that her train does not get in until 11 pm, he does not listen.

Ah, yes. She’s on the late train, too.

Her part-time job at the university’s library left her having to work at 7:30 on a Friday evening. It’s usually fine – she likes having the excuse of work to avoid any of her roommate’s extravagant outings – but today it meant she had to lug her overnight bags with her so she could go straight from work to the train station _just_ to go home for a few days. When she doesn’t even want to go.

So, yeah, Betty’s pissed. She’s pissed that her mom insists she goes home for her niece and nephew’s birthday even though she’ll literally be back in two weeks’ time for break. She’s pissed that her mom then still forces her to use what’s left from her _very_ small paycheck to pay for a trip she doesn’t want to go on.

And it sure isn’t cheap.

_Ugh_.

Running along platform 15 at 7:59, she manages to jump on the train just as the doors begin to shut. It’s a very close call, one she could’ve done without today. But at least she made the train.

(Well, if she’s honest, missing the train would’ve meant she could’ve trekked back to her dorm, downed a glass of red wine before phoning her mom to break the news. Her reaction, undoubtedly, would’ve been _bad_ , but then Betty could’ve rolled into bed and ignored everything for the weekend.

So maybe that would’ve been better.)

The train is busy. Both surprisingly and unsurprisingly. Surprising because who would willingly want to sit on this train for almost three hours, and unsurprising because, oh, right, Betty would apparently. 

Luckily for her, she reserved a seat. 2B, an aisle seat near the door for an easy escape if needs be, in carriage A.

And of course, she’s currently in carriage D.

(If she was 12, something about that would be funny. But, no, she’s 21 and both her love and sex lives are non-existent. So… no longer funny.)

She strides through carriage after carriage, getting increasingly pissed off at all of the lingering people and having to push past them all. And she does push because _goddammit_ do people not understand that you’re not meant to stare at people who say excuse me?

(Apparently not.)

Eventually, after what should be considered an Olympic Sport, she makes it to carriage A along to her seat. 

And because it’s busy and because she’s Betty, someone is sitting in 2A.

Not that it matters. They won’t talk to her; she won’t talk to them. It’s just… she’d rather have the freedom of an empty seat next to her. 

_No, Betty,_ she thinks to herself, _don’t be selfish_.

As she sits down next to a man who looks to be around her age, he looks up at her. If she were _really_ Alice Cooper’s daughter, she would say hello, engage in polite conversation, but she is not. (She is, of course, but not in the way Alice wants her to be.) 

Instead, she just smiles and shoves her bag under the seat in front. He smiles back before his eyes drop back to his book.

(It’s one of her favorites and she has to fight the urge to say something.)

To pass the time, she decided it would be good to write some of those essays she has due. So she unpacks a notebook and her favorite fountain pen – she’s old-fashioned, what can she say? – and gets to work.

Ten minutes in, she gets bored. She’s bored with writing about the ethics of journalism, but she’s barely written 100 words. As she eyes the book of the man next to her, she wishes she’d have packed one, too. Why did she think it was a good idea to give herself only essays to write for a 3-hour train?

Slamming the notebook shut, she leans her head back and sighs, frustrated. 

She must attract the attention of the man because she hears a soft voice say, “Are you okay?”

She wants to say yes, she wants to _be able_ to say yes, but it’s just not true. So she doesn’t. She looks over at him and says, “No,” with a flat laugh.

He furrows his eyebrows, obviously not expecting her to say that. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He sounds genuine, more genuine than she would be to a stranger on a busy train.

Shrugging, she swallows thickly. “I don’t even want to be here.”

“Why?”

“A 3-hour train followed by a forty-minute drive back to my hellish hometown just for my sister’s twin’s first birthdays because my mother says so.”

He blinks with some kind of shock. “That sure is a list.”

She can feel herself blush. “Yeah,” she mumbles, “sorry.”

(When he smiles at her, she feels just a little bit better. She doesn’t want to think about what that means, but the slight fuzzy feeling she gets says otherwise.)

“It’s okay.” He holds his hand out to her. “I’m Jughead.”

If she were a civilized human being, she’d stop the laugh of disbelief that comes out. He doesn’t seem _too_ offended, simply shrugging at her.

She takes his hand, shaking it awkwardly. “Fuck, I’m really sorry. I’m Betty.”

“I get it a lot.” Now for some reason, that’s what makes her feel bad. Worse than laughing at someone’s name, worse than embarrassing herself twice already. It’s the slight heartbreak his voice is laced with, hidden by his attempts to shrug it off.

She doesn’t know what to say. She can’t apologize again, but she also can’t leave it.

So she talks about what she knows best.

“That book is one of my favorites.”

His face lights up at that. “Mine too. I must’ve read it at least 4 times.”

They chat for a while about the book. It’s easy with Jughead, especially considering he’s a stranger. They seem to bounce off one another, discussing theories between the characters and for a potential sequel. To an outsider, it would seem like they had been friends for years. There’s no awkwardness left from Betty’s moment of stupidity, and Jughead seems like a lovely, genuine guy.

(Plus, he’s _cute_. His hair flops over his eye and he’s constantly fiddling with it. At one point, she’s tempted to offer him a bobby pin to clip it back but she thinks that’d probably be weird.)

Once the conversation about the book comes to a natural end, Betty fully expects Jughead to revert back to reading and leave her to her own devices. She’s pleasantly surprised when he doesn’t.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s this _hellish hometown_ you speak of?”

“Riverdale,” she says with an eye roll. “Town of nightmares, honestly.”

“Ah, so I’ve heard,” he chuckles. “I live in Albany, which, believe me, isn’t much better.”

_Albany to Riverdale is totally doable,_ she thinks to herself, momentarily allowing herself to get ahead of the game. 

“I go to NYU,” she finds herself saying, “and hopefully will live in the city instead of Riverdale.”

He nods. “I feel the same. I go to Columbia.”

_Columbia to NYU… even better._

Shaking her head in an attempt to rid herself of such thoughts, she listens as Jughead talks about his creative writing course.

The remainder of the journey flies by. They chat endlessly as if they’re the best of friends. Betty finds it enjoyable to talk to someone who actively wants to listen to her, who engages with what she’s saying. It’s different to what she’ll be getting over the weekend.

(She feels a pang of sadness when she realizes she may never see him again.)

Once the train pulls in to Albany station, Betty so busy bracing herself for her father’s wrath, she doesn’t notice Jughead following her.

“Hey, Betty?” he calls.

She spins around, crashing straight into him in the sea of people. “Fuck. Sorry,” she murmurs for what seems like the nineteenth time today.

He giggles, his arm coming up to grab onto her shoulder in an attempt to steady her. “You okay there?”

Nodding, she ducks her head to try and hide _another_ blushing of her face. 

They move over to the side, out of the way of the steady stream of people. It takes Betty too long to notice Jughead’s hand on hers was what dragged her there in the first place. 

(He interrupts her train of thought.)

“Running the risk of being too forward, can I–”

“Yes,” she answers before he can finish.

“You don’t know what I’m going to ask yet,” he points out, laughing.

She shrugs. “Maybe if I give you my number I’ll find out?”

_~fin_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please let me know your thoughts. i thrive off of ao3 emails.


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